HYD vs HYMB

HYDAVanEck High Yield Muni ETF

HYMBAState Street SPDR Nuveen ICE High Yield Municipal Bond ETF

In short

HYD Junk munis with a seatbelt: HYD's index mixes lower-rated and unrated bonds with a slice of investment-grade credit, spread across roughly 1,900 tax-exempt issues. Trading since 2009, priced under the category median.

HYMB Most muni index funds stop at investment grade. HYMB keeps going: its benchmark reaches from A-rated paper down through unrated deals, spreading roughly 1,900 tax-exempt bonds across that credit line. Income lands monthly.

Stated mandate

HYD The fund seeks to track the performance of a broad index of U.S. dollar-denominated, high-yield, long-term tax-exempt municipal bonds.

HYMB The fund seeks to track, before fees and expenses, the price and yield performance of the ICE US Select High Yield Crossover Municipal Index, which covers lower-rated and unrated tax-exempt municipal debt issued in the United States.

Why people hold it

• HYD The "crossover" build is the whole idea: lower-rated and unrated munis blended with an investment-grade allocation meant to firm up credit quality and tradability.vaneck.comvaneck.com 2
• Costs 0.32% a year, below the high-yield muni median of 0.40% and under index rival HYMB at 0.35%.
• Roughly 1,900 bonds, paid out monthly, so no single troubled issuer drives the whole distribution.
• Open since 2009 and one of the stronger index implementations in the high-yield muni group.vaneck.com

• HYMB The crossover mandate is the whole point: the index covers lower-rated (A3/A+ or lower) and unrated tax-exempt debt, not another top-grade general-obligation ladder.ssga.com
• About 1,900 bonds dilute any single issuer's trouble, and State Street has run the fund since 2011, through more than one muni credit scare.
• One of the more actively traded funds in the muni ETF aisle, which counts in a market where the underlying bonds themselves can sit still for weeks. Pays monthly.

Worth knowing

• HYD High yield means what it says: lower-rated and unrated municipal credit, where defaults and price swings bite harder than in investment-grade munis.vaneck.com
• A long-term muni portfolio, so interest-rate moves move the price. The tax-exempt income counts for most in a taxable account.vaneck.com
• Munis trade over the counter, not on an exchange, so spreads on the fund can widen when the bond market gets jumpy.vaneck.com

• HYMB 0.35% a year is the toll for assembling illiquid paper. Broad, plain-vanilla muni index funds such as VTEB and SCMB charge 0.03%.
• Lower-rated and unrated munis carry default and downgrade risk that top-rated general-obligation bonds don't, and prices can move sharply when muni buyers step back.
• The benchmark has been swapped before (Bloomberg to ICE in 2025), so older track records reflect a different index than the one the fund follows now.ssga.com

Full HYD profile⁠

Full HYMB profile⁠